#code combat

Computer programming can seem like such an overwhelming task to learn at the start. Depending on your approach, that could come out true. Thankfully, there are a some great sites for getting you started in the adventure known as coding that not only make it easier to learn, but fun too. Today, we will look at five such sites (in no particular order).

1. Code.org

Code.org is one of the go-to sites for starting your lessons in coding. With a variety of interactive games built to teach different programming concepts, it feels less like learning until you dive into the larger course options. Even then, it still plays like a game. Start with the Hour of Code lessons. They are short and can give an introduction to how the site works. If interested, try the larger courses. They will cover more topics, but there are elementary, middle school, and high school level courses. The best part...it is all free.

HERE is a link to the Course Catalog, where you can see the various options for learning.

2. Code Combat

This is a favorite of mine. It truly is a game. Play as a knight, but control using code. What makes this one unique is the approach. As you complete levels, you gain experience and gear. New gear means new codes to help solve levels. While there are a lot of free levels for the general user, a paid account is needed to experience everything. Still, over 100 levels available to free users still can give you an great introduction to coding. 

Take note that when you first go to the site, there is a link for students and teachers. Those would be for classrooms and as a student, you would only get around 20 levels before needing to pay to do more. If you just want to explore and have fun, go to the third link that says Play Now, which will give you many more levels to play for free.

HERE is a link to the site.

3. Scratch

Scratch is a programming language that looks completely different than what most people visualize when they think if computer programming. It was originally developed by researchers at MIT to help making coding seem more approachable. Over the years, it has exploded in popularity. If you have tried Code.org, then Scratch will seem familiar. Some might even suggest that the success of Scratch helped inspire many of the gamified programming sites that have developed over recent years. Plus, the site is FREE!

One really cool aspect of using the Scratch site is that you can have complete creative freedom to design something out of your imagination...then share it. Users have created animations, games, and more. 

HERE is a link to the main website.

HERE is a link to official tutorials to help you learn how to use the site, and ANOTHER LINK to the official Scratch Wiki, where some additional resources can be found.

4. Tynker

If you want to experience a variety of coding skills, check out Tynker. It has resources for several different languages, like HTML/CSS, Javascript, and Python. They also have a set of lessons all centered around Minecraft Modding. One downside of the site is that it will require a paid subscription to access a lot of the resources, but there are some free lessons if you want to check it out first. The lessons look and feel like games, which makes it a great way to get introduced to the concepts.

HERE is a link to the site.

5. CodeAvengers

CodeAvengers is another site to help learn a variety of languages. It may look less like a game at first because of the interface, but it is still built to make learning the languages fun. It also has A LOT of languages available, enough to really help you get started. While the site will require a subscription to go very far into the courses, they offer a 7-day free trial. That allows you to see the first five lessons of every course. This is great if you want to try each to find a language you really want to learn.

HERE is a link to the main site.

Check out this intro video:

BONUS MATERIAL!!

I know I said five, but I want to briefly mention two other great FREE resources. In the list above, I tried to focus on sites that are built to teach you about computer programming while playing games. These two bonus sites are less game, more lesson. Khan Academy and Code Academy are popular options to learn coding despite being less game-like. They both provide a variety of popular languages (check out Code Academy’s full catalog) and online communities through which you can get help during your coding journey.

That should cover some great starting ground if computer programming is something you have wanted to try. It is a career field that seems to only be increasing in size. Companies that might not seem like they have anything to do with coding are employing programmers. 

玩遊戲學程式正夯，你今天打怪了嗎？

2015/11/17更新：

微軟與 code.org 也合作推出寓教於樂程式遊戲， 玩 Minecraft 學程式正夯！

I spent the past weekend studying a lot and coding. After I got my homework for Week 1 of the Interactive Programming class done (ironically, that first project isn’t interactive at all!), I was looking around for more stuff to do, and ran across Code Combat. 

As you can see from the link title, it bills itself as an educational game that can teach you how to code. It plays in your browser, so you don’t need to download anything. You don’t even need to sign up to start. I played through the first world, which contains 17 stages if you haven’t signed up for a paid account.

The majority of players, and its target audience, are minors, kids from 9 on up until senior year of high school. I’m...not that target audience. I’m an adult, taking MOOC courses affiliated with colleges. So what I have to say about the game should be taken with that in mind.

Let’s go over what I like and what I don’t:

Pros

The graphics, writing, and design are well done and professional. The art is stylized/cartoony, the objectives of each stage are written in simple, easy-to-understand language, and each stage gradually builds upon the next in a reasonable way.

You get your pick of two player characters, male or female, and can unlock more with certain achievements. The two to start with differ only in appearance, so you aren’t penalized for picking one over the other (games that make female chars weaker suck).

Even though it’s aimed at minors, it’s still appealing enough for adults. A parent or teacher could sit down with a student to help them, and find themselves engaged. Adult players don’t feel like they’re stuck playing a kid’s game

It’s pretty fun as a puzzle game, and you can up the challenge by trying to compete on the leaderboards 

The game walks you through each step of your code and warns you when something is about to go wrong so you can correct it

It teaches coding principles in a way that isn’t the same-old dull LOGO turtle stuff you see in ancient math textbooks. Granted, the earliest stages do involve simply walking through a maze, but the stylistic trimmings (explore the dungeon! Grab treasure!) are a little more exciting than older, turtle-based efforts at getting children interested in computer science. Older edutainment in this area was plodding and unappealing to children who lacked interest in turtles, flow charts, or mathematical logic (aka most of them).

Cons

Although you have your choice of programming language, and the code is based on the language you choose, it’s not really the same thing as the actual language. For example, if you want to write a loop, instead of using for/while, you use the command “loop”. Maybe this is just to start with and more advanced stages use the proper commands, but you certainly can’t type “loop” into a Python IDE and expect anything to happen.

You can play as a male or female character to start with, but both characters are white. You can unlock other characters later, but there’s only one character with dark skin (Arryn Stonewall). A few are ambigiously raced, and two are based on Asian fantasy tropes/stereotypes (Amara Arrowhead & Hattori Hanzo).

The early stages are very easy and kind of slow. The target audience might find them more challenging, though.

The game nags you a lot to pay up. If you’re a child, you might not realize how to get out of those nag screens and get frustrated, or wind up getting your parents to pay when it’s not actually necessary.

Some of the stages have code that’s “locked”, and it’s frustrating to figure out how to work around that to complete the level.

Outside of the pros and cons, let me also add that the game is set in the standard Ye Olde Medieval Fantasy world. I’m personally kind of bored with D&D/Tolkien-inspired settings, but I also understand that the tropey nature of a familiar setting gives the developers a firm foundation upon which they can introduce unfamiliar concepts to players. And the game isn’t about the setting or characters, so even if I wish they had gone with something else, I understand why they did it and that it doesn’t matter very much anyway.

Would I recommend this as a game? Yeah, it’s pretty good. It’s a fun puzzle/strategy game in its own right.

But is it a good way to learn how to code? Eh...it teaches basic principles and how to think ahead. However, what you’re doing in the initial stages isn’t that close to “real” programming, in that you’re using special commands and solving problems that only apply to the game world.